The knowledge that “War is Hell” probably dates back to the start of civilization. But the idea that war is chaos, that traveling to some distant jungle to fire mechanized weapons at men you’ve never even met isn’t just courageous or brutal but an act of existential craziness, is a uniquely modern one – and it has flourished in the Vietnam era. Just think of the two great sequences the first wave of Vietnam movies are remembered for: the agonizingly tense Russian-roulette scene in The Deer Hunter, and the epic helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now. Both are grandiose, terrifying, “unreal” – they’re about the madness of the war, about the madness of war itself. We know the Vietcong didn’t actually make their prisoners play Russian roulette; we know American commanders didn’t blast Wagner from their choppers as they machine-gunned peasant villages. But The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now said, “That’s what it felt like.” The bravery, the pain, the sadism and terror and exhilaration – sensations that have been part of every war since the beginning of time were experienced differently in Vietnam, not only because the war was fought with technological weapons, not only because many of the men didn’t know why they were there, but because something in the fragile modern consciousness rejects the very idea of warfare. In these movies, war is such Hell, such utter, consuming chaos, that one comes away thinking nothing in the world – not the Commies, no, not even the Nazis – could truly make men know Why They Were There.

Oliver Stone’s Platoon, which is set near the Cambodian border in 1967, begins a new era in the way movies look at Vietnam. It has some of the same horrific, arty-modernist overtones The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now did, but essentially it’s a straight-forward combat saga, an almost diarylike account of one soldier’s physical experience of the war, with a good-versus-evil moral backdrop that places it squarely – and audaciously – in the tradition of Hollywood war movies. (I’d argue that that tradition excludes such pulp extravaganzas as Rambo and the Chuck Norris Missing in Action films, which use Vietnam as the setting for abstract exploitation fantasies, with the “gooks” as roving targets.) At heart, Platoon is a very conventional picture. That’s what’s good about it (it’s a supremely well-crafted classical-style war movie), and also why it’s ultimately a little unsatisfying. Stone has ambitions. Like Norman Mailer in The Naked and the Dead, he’s trying to detonate a war story from the inside out, to stay true to the male-romantic codes of the familiar combat genre yet also push beyond those codes, exposing the fears and psychological complexities that machismo denies, high-lighting the folly – the blindness – of those who covet military power for its own sake.

Profit without honor This article originally appeared in the December 11, 1987 issue of the Boston Phoenix .

Smoke screens What does it say about America that marijuana movies are a hot genre right now, perhaps hotter even than in the heyday of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong’s 1978 Up in Smoke ?

Feel-good movie of the summer With the upcoming November elections poised to determine the future of Congress, what better gift could Republicans ask for than a popular Hollywood movie that conjures the image that for five years has granted them power and impunity? Watch the trailer for World Trade Center (QuickTime) Off-Center: Oliver Stone's trite take on 9/11. By Peter Keough

Apocalypse now and then With Snakes on a Plane and World Trade Center opening on the same day, this summer won’t be offering the usual escapist fare.

Interview: Ray Manzarek of the Doors It’s been nearly 40 years since the death of Jim Morrison, but the surviving members of the Doors, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and percussionist John Densmore have kept soldiering on, playing in various reformations of the ground-breaking band. The meteoric rise of the band is chronicled in the new documentary, When You’re Strange.

Oliver's army While he refers to himself as a “dramatist” rather than a historian, Stone has positioned himself as Hollywood’s gatekeeper to America’s post-war past. Feel-good movie of the summer: Oliver Stone: from the Hollywood crackpot of JFK to the Republican sellout of World Trade Center. By Peter Keough Off-Center: Oliver Stone's trite take on 9/11. By Peter Keough

Route 666 This article originally appeared in the August 26, 1994 issue of the Boston Phoenix .

Below the surface It’s another hot day in Boston, and Paramount has taken over the 10th floor of the Ritz Carlton to host a press junket for Oliver Stone’s sunny take on 9/11, World Trade Center . Feel-good movie of the summer: Oliver Stone: from the Hollywood crackpot of JFK to the Republican sellout of World Trade Center. By Peter Keough Off-Center: Oliver Stone's trite take on 9/11. By Peter Keough

Off Center The result is emotional pornography not unlike that produced by cable stations when they pump up the “human” angle of catastrophe for higher ratings. Watch the trailer for World Trade Center (QuickTime) Feel-good movie of the summer: Oliver Stone: from the Hollywood crackpot of JFK to the Republican sellout of World Trade Center. By Peter Keough

The plot thickens This article originally appeared in the December 20, 1991 issue of the Boston Phoenix .